After over five years, ‘Lambda’ sees David Cordero return on Home Normal. Over the years, the label has consistently put out quality content, and Cordero’s quiet, deeply melodic music makes for a perfect fit, featuring an array of subtle ambient-electronics which, when played back, create an introspective world of narrow and shy sounds. Despite its introversion, the tiny melodic fragments are still able to say something…and they say it with great power. It isn’t minimal music, but it is minuscule.
Understated, humble, and selfless, its ambient heart is brought closer to the surface, and it’s able to be seen more clearly because of these qualities. Nothing else masks the music – looping melodies are able to develop even through their repetitive nature, and their echoing tails of reverb and reversals aren’t obscured by anything else. As the record progresses, a pale light begins to seep through, similar to the first tint of the sun on the horizon, and the breaking of a new dawn. The music begins to open up, responding quickly to its lightening atmosphere, and sounds of nature fall upon the album, an abundance of life picking up on the wake-up call of a new day and responding in kind with a new song and a renewed vitality. At other times, clear bells sit alongside quiet loops.
Perhaps the word that best describes this record is muted: in tone, tonal colour, and atmosphere. Its world has been diluted, but quietness should not equate to a feeling of inadequacy when compared to louder types of music. All too often, quieter music is left in the corner, but it’s just as capable of producing a knockout, emotional moment to equal its louder brothers and sisters. Although quiet, Cordero’s music is of a high intensity, and musicians must be careful not to confuse an increase in volume with an increase in intensity or emotional force. Cordero says everything that needs to be said, and that’s a sign of excellent music.